Helplessness and Confusion

Published:PravdaNo. 115, May 21, 1913.

      Signed:V. Ilyin.

      Published according to thePravdatext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      pages108-109.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Thereasons for the chaos and confusion among modern Social-Democrats
and “near Social-Democrats” are not only external (persecutions, etc.),
but alsointernal. A huge number of old “prominent Party people”
are completely confused, they have understood absolutely nothing about the
new state of affairs (the counter-revolution of the June Third system), and
their helpless “dithering”—today to the left, tomorrow to the
right—has caused hopeless confusion in everything they undertake.

Aperfect example of this embarrassment, helplessness and confusion is
to be found in the article by A. Vlasov inLuchNo. 109 (195).

Thereis not a single idea, a single sound word in the whole of
Vlasov’s article. It is all confusion and helpless limping after the
liquidators combined with futile efforts to disassociate himself from
them. It is not true that “formerly” our Party was sometimes built up
“without the workers themselves”, or that “the activities of the
underground amounted largely (!!?) to abstract (!?) propaganda of the ideas
of socialism”. The history of the oldIskra(1900-03), which
created the Party programme and the fundamentals of Party tactics, fully
refutes this. It is not true that the Party’s task today is “openwork(!!?), but the secret organisation of it”. A. Vlasov has
completely failed to understand the liquidationist content of the slogan
“struggle for an open party”, although it was explained inPravdaNo. 108 (312), popularly and not for the first time.

Itis not true thatPravdaadvises “adopting the work of the
old Party organisation as an example”. “It is essentialto outline, even if briefly, the nature of the activity of this (new)
underground, i.e., its tactics,” says A. Vlasov with amusing pomposity
(“we, the practical workers”).As far back asDecember 1908[1]the Party “outlined”itstactics (and in
1912[2]and
1913[3]confirmed and explained them) and its organisation, giving a
clear “example” of old tasks andnewforms of
preparation. If A. Vlasov has not yet understood this he has only himself
to blame: it is his fate to repeat fragments of liquidationism, the dispute
with which, incidentally, has nothing to do with the “organisation
question”.

[1]Leninhere refers to the decisions passed by the Fifth (All-Russian)
Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. held in Paris between December 21 and December
27, 1908 (January 3–9, 1909). The Conference was attended by 16 delegates
with full powers: five Bolsheviks, three Mensheviks, five Polish
Social-Democrats and three Bundists. Lenin represented the Central
Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.; he delivered a report on “The Tasks of the
Party in the Present Situation”; he also spoke on the Social-Democratic
Duma group and on organisational and other questions. At the Conference the
Bolsheviks fought two opportunist trends in the Party—liquidationismand otzovism. On Lenin’s proposal the Conference condemned liquidationism
and called upon all Party organisations to struggle resolutely against all
attempts to liquidate the Party. Bolshevik resolutions on all questions
were adopted.

[2]“In1912” refers to the decisions of the Sixth (Prague) All-Russian
Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. held from January 5 (18) to January 17(30),
1912, which actually fulfilled the functions of a Party congress. Lenin
guided the work of the Conference.

Theimportant business of the Conference was that of purging the Party
of opportunists. The resolutions adopted on “Liquidationism and the Group
of Liquidators” and on “The Party Organisation Abroad” were of great
importance both from the theoretical and from the practical points of
view. The liquidators grouped around two legal publications,Nasha
Zarya(Our Dawn) andDyelo Zhizni(Life’s
Cause). The Conference put on record “that by its conduct theNasha ZaryaandDyelo Zhiznigroup had definitely placed
itself outside the Party”. The liquidators were expelled from the
R.S.D.L.P. The Conference condemned the activities of anti-Party groups
abroad—theGolosgroup of Mensheviks, theVperyodgroup
and Trotsky’s group. It recognised the absolute necessity for a single
Party organisation abroad promoting Party interests under the guidance and
control of the Central Committee and resolved that groups abroad “which
refuse to submit to the Russian centre of Social-Democratic activity, i.e.,
to the Central Committee, and which cause disorganisation by communicating
with Russia independently and ignoring the Central Committee, have no right
to use the name of the R.S.D.L.P.” These resolutions played an important
part in strengthening the unity of the Marxist party in Russia.

ThePrague Conference played an outstanding part in the organisation of
the Bolshevik Party, a party of a new typo. It summed up a whole historical
epoch of the struggle of the Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks and
strengthened the victory of the Bolsheviks. Party organisations in all
localities were consolidated on the basis of the Conference decisions; the
Conference also strengthened the Party as an all-Russian organisation, and
outlined the political line and tactics of the Party under conditions of
the new revolutionary upsurge. The Bolshevik Party, purged of the
opportunists, headed a mighty new upsurgence of the revolutionary mass
struggle.

ThePrague Conference was of great international significance. It
offered revolutionary elements in the parties of the Second International a
model of determined struggle against opportunism, pursuing the struggle as
far as complete organisational rupture with the opportunists.

[3]“In1913” refers to the Joint Conference of the Central Committee of
the R.S.D.L.P. and Party officials held in Cracow from December 26, 1912 to
January 1, 1913 (January 8–14, 1913). Underground Party organisations in
St. Petersburg, Moscow Region, the South, the Urals and the Caucasus were
represented. Lenin presided overthe Conference and spoke on “The Revolutionary Upsurge, Strikes and the
Party’s Tasks” and on “The Attitude to Liquidationism, and Unity” (the
texts of these speeches have been lost); Lenin also compiled or edited all
the Conference resolutions and wrote the “Notification” of the Central
Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. on the Conference.

TheConference took decisions on the most important questions of the
working-class movement—the tasks of the Party in connection with the new
revolutionary upsurge and the growth of the strike movement, the building
of the underground organisation, the work of the Social-Democratic Duma
group, the insurance campaign, the Party press, the national
Social-Democratic organisations, the struggle against liquidationism and
the unity of the party of the proletariat.

Thedecisions of the Conference played an important part in
strengthening the Party and its unity, in extending and consolidating the
Party’s contacts with the masses, and in the elaboration of new forms of
Party work fitted to the mounting activity of the working-class
movement. The Resolutions of the Cracow Conference were confirmed by the
Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.